My Mother’s Peasant Bread: The Best Easiest Bread You Will Ever Make

"The bowls: The cheapest, most widely available 1-qt bowl is thePyrex 322. Sold here,too. The vintage Pyrex #441 bowl is my favorite bowl to bake the peasant bread in — the perfectly round shape of the bowl creates a beautiful round loaf. It belongs to a set of four nesting bowls (also called Cinderella bowls, specifically the Pyrex #441, #442, #443, #444), which I have purchased from Ebay. I absolutely love the set in general, but I love most of all that I can bake the whole batch of peasant bread in the second largest bowl (#443) and half of the batch in the smallest bowl (#441). The set runs anywhere from $35 to $50 or higher depending on the pattern of the Pyrex. More pictures of the bowls can be found on this post. The bread: This is a sticky, no-knead dough, so, some sort of baking vessel, such as pyrex bowls (about 1-L or 1-qt) or ramekins for mini loaves is required to bake this bread. You can use a bowl that is about 2 qt or 2 L in size to bake off the whole batch of dough (versus splitting the dough in half) but do not use this size for baking half of the dough — it is too big. Yeast: I buy SAF Instant Yeast in bulk from Amazon I store it in my fridge or freezer, and it lasts forever. If you are using the packets of yeast (the kind that come in the 3-fold packets), just go ahead and use a whole packet — It's 2.25 teaspoons. I have made the bread with active dry, rapid rise, and instant yeast, and all varieties work. If you are interested in buying yeast in bulk, here you go: SAF instant yeast andRed Star Baking Yeast(use this if you prefer to stick to active-dry, though I highly recommend using instant). The beauty of instant yeast is that there is no need to do the proofing step — you can add the yeast directly to the flour. I never use active-dry yeast anymore. Troubleshooting: Several commenters have had trouble with the second rise, and this seems to be caused by the shape of the bowl they are letting the dough rise in the second time around. Two hours for the second rise is too long. If you don't have a 1-qt bowl, bake 3/4 of the dough in a loaf pan and bake the rest off in muffin tins or a popover pan — I recently made 6 mini loaves in a popover pan. The second rise should take no more than 30 minutes. Also, you can use as many as 3 cups of whole wheat flour, but the texture changes considerably. I suggest trying with all all-purpose or bread flour to start and once you get the hang of it, start trying various combinations of whole wheat flour and/or other flours. Also, measure scant cups of flour if you are not measuring by weight: scoop flour into the measuring cup using a separate spoon or measuring cup; level off with a knife. The flour should be below the rim of the measuring cup. Here's a printable version that's less wordy: Peasant Bread Recipe, Simplified Peasant Bread Fans! There is now a book: Bread Toast Crumbs,a loaf-to-crumb bread baking book, filled with tips and tricks and answers to the many questions that have been asked over the years. Inthe book you will find 40 variations of the master peasant breadrecipe + 70 ideas for using up the manyloaves you will bake. Learn more about the book here or buyit here...."